Online Designer for what and how

FastReport.Net follows modern trends and pays a lot of time for web reports. Such reports can be placed on any web resource that supports html, because the web report is nothing more than exporting the report to html. Thanks to the integration with ASP.Net, we can work with the report object as well as in the usual .Net application.

What it is?

Continuing the theme of web reports, a special online designer was developed that allows you to create a report, download a report from a local machine or server, edit the report and save it to a local disk or server. The functionality is very close to the usual desktop report designer. This product greatly expanded the scope of application of FR. To create and edit a report, you do not need to install the FastReport package, you just open the browser and go to your site where OnlineDesigner is deployed. More details about the principle of work can be found in the article: "Using the on-line report designer in FastReport .NET".

Where to get?

OnlineDesigner is included in the delivery of FastReport.Net Enterprise. There is a special designer for the online designer in the client panel. In this designer, you need to define the functionality of the designer, its composition. By eliminating unnecessary functionality, you can reduce the size of the program, which is important to save space on the server. Or you can intentionally limit functionality to users if you do not plan to use any features of the designer. Having finished the configuration, you receive an archive with the program.

How to use?

To use the downloaded designer, you need to unzip it into your web project, into a separate folder. Then, in the application code, enable the DesignReport property of the WebReport object, and for DesignerPath, specify the location of the online designer in your project. Now the designer will be displayed in the WebReport object.

You can download the report to the designer from the application code. Read about this in detail in my article: "How to download the report in Online Designer and download the edited report".

You can save the report to a local disk using the save button (this is described in the article above). You can override the save event and save the report to the server (this can be seen in the demo from the folder FastReports\FastReport.Net\Demos\C#\Web\MvcRazor).

Quite recently it was possible to change the configuration of the report designer right in the application code. This can be useful when you organize differentiation of user access rights. On this topic came an article: "How to change the configuration of Online Designer in the code of the program."

Error handling when developing a report in OnlineDesigner is also possible. To do this, enable the debug property of the WebReport object and write the error handler in the method of saving the report. Detailed implementation of such a handler is considered in the article:

" How to handle errors when calling WebReport.DesignerSaveCallBack"

In this short article I tried to give you general information - what is Online Designer, as well as some useful links to articles that will open for you new opportunities for using an online designer in your projects.